I've read a number of articles about aging game meat that say that cervids have different enzymes than bovines. As a result, aging doesn't affect tenderness like it does in beef. I don't know which is right and offering my opinion wouldn't change anyone's mind anyway.
I don't know if aging wild game affects the meat "like beef" or not. Who cares? Aging wild game improves eating quality without a doubt - and that's from experience. Aging isn't the be-all.-end all however.. Several other factors can come into play. Some of the best meat i've ever had was some caribou killed at about 20 degrees, gutted only, not skinned, quickly frozen and week or so and later skinned and butchered.
There are multiple factors involved here, and I don't fully understand them. I just do the best I can under the circumstances. I will say the most tender and delicious caribou (or any meat) I've ever had was from a 'bou I killed out on the Alaska Peninsula. 6 weeks of pork chops was getting to me, so I whacked this bull hanging around camp with the F&G rifle, sent most of it to other camps and the supply pilot, but kept a hind, slicing off meals as time progressed. (Also discolored or maggoty meat). No refrigeration, just ambient upper 40's temp, in the shade under the salmon counting tower. We ate off that hind for a couple weeks. One could cut the steaks with a fork, literally.
Our farts would gag a maggot, literally....
Middle of the night, one of us would rip his sleeping bag open and race outside to fart. Damn, that was good meat, with bad end results...
